Editing Allegan County, Michigan (section)

==History==
The Michigan peninsula was long occupied by bands of the Pottawatomi and Ojibwe of the [[Lake Superior Band of Chippewa Indians]]. The United States government forced the tribes to cede their extensive territories to the federal government, in exchange for annuities and small reservations. The federally recognized [[Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan|Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band]] of Pottawatomi has a reservation here.

The boundaries of Allegan County were laid out by the [[Minnesota Territory|Territorial]] legislature in 1831. The county was organized in 1835. At that time there were only about four European-American families in the area. Among the first settlers of Allegan County were Giles Scott and Turner Aldrich.<ref>Thomas, Henry F. (Ed.) (1907). [https://books.google.com/books?id=tBgVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA4 ''A Twentieth Century History of Allegan County, Michigan''], pp. 4–6. The Lewis Publishing Co.</ref>